


I Get By (With a Little Help From My Friends)

by isaac richard (isaacrichard)



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Complicated Relationships, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dreamscapes, Drinking & Talking, Family, Friendship/Love, Gen, Headspace, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Love, Other, the au is - i know they probably integrated but What If They Didn't, theyre shootin the shit what can i say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24652507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isaacrichard/pseuds/isaac%20richard
Summary: The Aldersystem has a bit to drink. Things get interesting.Preface - the warnings are kind of dark, but it's based on discussion. Nothing is graphically depicted.
Relationships: Elliot Alderson & Elliot Alderson, Elliot Alderson & Magda Alderson, Elliot Alderson & Mr. Robot
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	I Get By (With a Little Help From My Friends)

**Author's Note:**

> may be more to this, not sure where i want to take it, but the idea felt really good. also, this doesn't need to be said, but i hate edward alderson so fucking much. ugh.  
> hope yall enjoy! thanks for reading! 
> 
> (you know damn well what the damn title is from. its the damn beatles song.)
> 
> Edit: after doing some fine tuning on this, I realize just how often they smoke/take a drag from a cig/etc. Jesus christ guys... this system doesn't need one set of black lungs, let alone four....

_“The first rule about fight club is… you don’t fucking talk about fight club.”_

Magda leans over, and sharply smacks Mr. Robot in the ear with the palm of her hand. Her rings scrape him in the process. Then she leans back, crosses her legs, taps her foot in irritation, and blows a smoke ring Robot might admire, if he wasn’t busy glaring at her.

“Fuck was that for?” he mutters, scrubbing at his face. His ear rings, faintly.

“I hate that movie,” she says shortly. “What did you want? It’s late, I want to sleep. It’s past Elliot’s bedtime.”

The eight-year-old alter lifts his thoroughly sleep-ruffled head. He’s begun to play solitaire with a deck of cards – and doesn’t look like he particularly cares to go back to bed. Robot waves a hand, streaking smoke in the air where he gestures.

“He’s fine.”

Magda flicks cigarette ash onto the floor, grinding it into the linoleum with her heel. It leaves a big black spot for her to glare at.

Why was she wearing her man-crushing heels if she had supposedly been sleeping? Who knew, honestly. Put simply, the physicality rules in Elliot’s head didn’t work like real life. Magda could do as she wished, and she did.

Mastermind slinks into the room, nods his head at Robot in greeting. He doesn’t seem to notice, or care about, Magda’s presence. Almost automatically, Little Elliot switches from solitaire into gin rummy. Mastermind has nothing to say, yet, but his presence means that the gathering has commenced.

Mr. Robot leans back, lights himself another cigarette. At least they still came running when he rang the bell.

Some things never change.

Mastermind has also lit a cigarette, and the three adults sit, silently smoking, while the eight-year-old slowly wins at gin. Once he does, Mastermind gives him a rare smile, and turns to the other two.

“What?” he asks, not unkindly. “Why are we here?”

He scans their faces – neither seem particularly agitated nor upset, only annoyed, on Magda’s end. Host was sleeping, evident how time has seemingly slowed, and Mastermind usually used this time to sleep, too. When Robot wasn’t randomly summoning them.

He hadn’t fronted in a while, and that was fine by him. He was exhausted.

“I was bored,” Mr. Robot admits, unashamed. He takes another drag of his cigarette.

Magda groans. She starts to leave her seat. “Elliot, we’re going home.”

Both Mastermind and the child look up.

“No – Magda, c’mon,” Mr. Robot says, rising. “Just. Fucking drink with me tonight, you frigid bitch. What else do you have going on?”

Magda purses her lips, seemingly considering it. She glances back at her son. “Are you alright, dear?”

“Fine, Mama,” Little Elliot says shortly. He’s still winning. Mastermind looks slightly pained, the way he did when he was concentrating. He really was a terrible card player.

When she sits back down, the table looks like a bar. She vaguely remembers that Stephen King movie adaptation had a scene like this – Elliot had seen a lot of movies, in his time. She nearly spits at the memory of the movie theatres, of sitting next to _Edward,_ and trying not to break all of his fingers when they landed on Elliot's thigh.

_"if you ever touch him again you sick son of a bitch i swear to God I'll –”_

Anyway. The table looks like that scene, where Jack Nicholson is talking to some kind of bartender ghost, and the bar looks endless and shiny with forbidden cocktails.

And Magda, who doesn’t hate Mr. Robot as much as she makes it seem, thinks, you know, fuck it. Why not? Everyone was safe – safer than they had been in an awfully long time. Their prodigal son had come home. Why not celebrate?

Mr. Robot grins, his eyes flashing devilishly behind his glasses. “Shots?”

Magda caves – she gives him just a hint of a smile, around the butt of her cigarette. She lights another. “You’re on.”

They get smashed.

They get smashed, fucked, knocked on their asses. They get really, really, really drunk, really quickly.

Mr. Robot had had a drink in his time – _in Elliot’s time,_ he corrects faintly. He had been drunk, really drunk, in the real world. Many times. And this was like twelve times that – he can’t even think, his world is just a pleasant, staticky blur. His fingers don’t feel real.

Magda bursts out laughing, a plume of smoke rising elegantly from her mouth. “You’re drunk.”

Mr. Robot laughs, too. Not quite as elegantly. “Yeah, I am.”

“Had – “ Magda swallows, almost unable to form her words. She takes a drink, to chase the strange feeling. “Has Elliot been drinking?”

Mr. Robot giggles. “Yeah.”

Magda slaps her hand against the table in this revelation, feeling almost angry. The only reason they got so fucked was because Host had already been drinking – and good for him, let the boy have some fun. This was _Robot’s_ fault. He should have warned her!

“You bitch!” she accuses, pointing. She’s steamed, a little, but she’s laughing.

Mr. Robot laughs harder, near tears. “Yeah, I am.”

Magda can’t be mad, really. She’s too smashed. “Aw. I’m sorry, dear.”

Mr. Robot waves a hand, like the emotionally suppressed asshole he was. “Shut up.”

They drink more. Mastermind appears, creeping up on them like the skittish animal he was, and knocks back an impressive amount of tequila. The child has fallen asleep, in a bed that hadn’t been there twenty seconds ago. His face is turned away from them. _Good._

“We’re so fucking _drunk,”_ Elliot states softly.

Mr. Robot gives him a clumsy salute. “Capt’n Obvious.”

“Fuck you,” Elliot garbles. He closes his eyes, and the lights go down around them. Too bright. “I am _so_ drunk. I should not have gotten this drunk. Is Host this drunk?”

“Probably,” Robot admits. “He went out. He has a boyfriend, now.”

Mastermind scrubs a hand over his face. He’s tired, but then again, he’s always tired. “Is he Swedish?”

Mr. Robot laughs. “The boyfriend? No. He’s Black.”

A sharp inhale. “Don’t tell me it’s Leon.”

Now Mr. Robot really laughs. “Is he the only Black person you know?”

Mastermind glares him down, but Robot just keeps on laughing. “The kid’s having fun. It’s good for us, kiddo. Don’t get jealous.”

“Settle, boys,” Magda mutters, voice magnified as she cups her hands around her lighter. They do.

“Do you remember high school?”

Magda groans. She’s too drunk – way too drunk – for high school talk. “ _Please_ don’t.”

Mr. Robot leans in, intrigued. He grins, though it’s still sloppy and stupid. “So, you do, then?”

Magda sniffs, indignant. She taps her cigarette in her crystal ashtray. “Of course, I do. I’m almost as old as you are, you know.”

“I know. I remember when it was just you, and me, and the kid.”

Something flashes across Magda’s face. A memory, or a dream. Or both. She doesn’t voice it – and then it’s gone. “Go on,” she urges. “What about high school?”

“It blew,” Mastermind pipes up. They all agree.

“My poor boy,” Magda mutters, mostly to herself. Which, of course, also means everyone else.

Mr. Robot waves his hands. “No sad shit,” he slurs.

And then, adding insult to injury, he tips back the last of the beer he’d been nursing. “What I was _gonna_ say, was – was, do you remember that huge graduation party Angela took him to, back in high school? He never would have went on his own, but it was fucking nuts. Do you remember, M?”

Mastermind turns. “Through osmosis, I guess,” he murmurs. His eyes are still closed. “I wasn’t there.”

“Right –“ Mr. Robot snaps his fingers. “You’re a baby. I forget.”

Mastermind half-heartedly gives him the finger.

“I remember graduation,” Magda murmurs. “We were so proud. _He_ was so proud.”

Robot sniffs. “That was a really good day. He made himself puke right after ‘cause he though he ate too much and was going to explode, but still. Good day.”

Magda groans. “Beginnings of the paranoia.”

Mastermind makes a face. “Since he was 18? 19? When did we graduate?”

“Since he was eight, Elliot,” Magda says sadly. She nods to her son. “It’s been a long time.”

Mastermind doesn’t know what to say to that, so he throws back another shot.

“God, I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Mr. Robot snarls, pacing.

“He’s dead,” Magda’s reply is calm, as she serenely blows her cigarette smoke towards the ceiling. She’s done this with him before. She’ll likely do it again.

“I’m still gonna fucking kill him!” Mr. Robot throws his chair against the glass window, which of course, gently bounces back at him. Windows don’t shatter, here, and neither does glass. For the year he’d been under, Host had never once cut his finger – until Mastermind woke him up, and everything started to crumble.

“Explain how,” she counters. Logic always wins.

Robot pauses to consider this. He sways drunkenly. He stifles a blech. He’s undeterred by logic.

“I dunno,” he chokes. He looks like he’s about to pass out, despite the fire in his eyes. “But I’m gonna kill him!”

“He’s dead,” Magda repeats calmly. “He’s been dead since 1995. That’s twenty years. You can’t kill a man who's been dead twenty years, Mr. Robot.”

Mr. Robot screams. It’s an awful sound, but Little Elliot is far enough removed by now. Mastermind still winces, though.

“I’m gonna kill him!” Robot roars.

“Sit down,” Mastermind groans. Mr. Robot had been at this for twenty minutes already and was showing no signs of slowing down. Mastermind just _knew_ he was going to have a killer headache tomorrow.

“Don’t you fucking get it, Elliot? He fucking _hurt us._ He hurt you! He hurt that little kid in there, don’t you remember when that was you?”

Mr. Robot looks close to tears – upset, angry, tears, that look alien on his scruffy, middle-aged face. The face of Edward Alderson.

“He _fucked_ us,” Mr. Robot croaks, and Mastermind abruptly rises, walks towards him, and breaks his nose in a smooth right hook.

It’s a knee-jerk reaction, really. No planning involved – Mr. Robot said something stupid, and Mastermind reacted.

Mr. Robot stumbles, blood gushing from his nose. Magda rolls her eyes.

“Can't you boys play nice?” she wonders loudly, and then goes to help Mr. Robot stand back up.

“Okay,” Robot pants. His nose is crooked at a satisfyingly grotesque angle. Blood gushes down his chin, neck, and into the collar of his shirt. Mastermind had good aim, and he knew it. “Okay – _fuck –_ okay. Maybe I deserved that.”

“Damn right you did,” Magda says, slinging Robot’s arm over her shoulders. She helps him sit in his seat – at least it got him to calm down.

“Now fix it, please. I don’t want to look at you like this.”

“Gee, thanks,” Mr. Robot says through bloody teeth, but precedes to heal his broken nose. He scrunches his face – testing his work. He spits blood onto the floor – now there’s a black spot, and a red.

Magda gives him a solid pat on the shoulder. He was an idiot – but his heart was in the right place. There’s movement behind them, and they look up together. 

“What the fuck? Is this – what is this?”

Host Elliot stands in the doorway, clad in pajama pants and a very bemused expression. “Is this a dream?”

“Oh, fuck,” Mr. Robot mutters. “Magda, sweetie, did you forget to check the baby alarm?”

“Shut up, Robot,” she warns. “Elliot, honey. Go back to bed.”

Host rubs his eyes. “Okay, Mom.” And as easily as he came, he leaves.

Mastermind shakes his head at them. “You’re gonna have to tell him sometime,” he says.

Robot shakes his head right back. He was still too drunk. "I will. Just not tonight."


End file.
